__________________I'm a lawyer, but I'm not YOUR lawyer. Nothing I say should be taken as legal advice.
The Court's extensive review of these pages serves as a useful reminder that loaded guns, sharp objects and law degrees should be kept out of the reach of children. -- United States Magistrate Judge Paul Cleary

This is why I try to buy local whenever possible. Government meat is just nasty.

Errr . . . the USDA makes the rules for all meat, whether you buy it local or not . . . it's the companies that put the pink slime in. The USDA lets them, because its, well, corrupt. But there's no "government meat" involved . . .

__________________I'm a lawyer, but I'm not YOUR lawyer. Nothing I say should be taken as legal advice.
The Court's extensive review of these pages serves as a useful reminder that loaded guns, sharp objects and law degrees should be kept out of the reach of children. -- United States Magistrate Judge Paul Cleary

Errr . . . the USDA makes the rules for all meat, whether you buy it local or not . . . it's the companies that put the pink slime in. The USDA lets them, because its, well, corrupt. But there's no "government meat" involved . . .

By "government meat" I mean meat that is owned by those handful of companies, mass produced, stuck in feed lots, corn-fed, and can be found at your local grocery store. It's just nasty. The food industry in USA isn't nearly as "clean" as most people think it is. And definitely corrupt, like you said. Another reason why I say "government meat". People in the USDA and FDA work in these major companies. They all have a stake in it, which is why the companies usually get their way. Companies and USDA....go hand in hand.

Buying from a local farmer, I get to see how these cows live and eat. Grass, which means a LOT less E. Coli in their systems. The butcher is usually very clean, too, so no need for that ammonia washing. I dunno. I just like seeing how my meat is handled, especially considering the level of corrupt thinking in the food industry we have.

How is this different than hotdogs, smoked sausage, etc.? That is mechanically separated meat...I eat it all of the time.

Do I think it is high quality? God, no, that's why hotdogs are cheap and I don't think anyone tells you that a hotdog is healthy for you. Do I think eating it is a bad thing? Nope.
Yes, it is treated with ammonia to kill off bacteria...but so are whole carcasses before being chilled in the cooler. Heck, meat is often packaged in CO to keep the color of the meat "fresh".

I guess I fail to see what the issue is. Is it the fact that it is being served as a school lunch? Does mixing it in to a hamburger patty at a 70/30 hamburger/MSM ratio really lower the nutritive value of that hamburger that much?

As a college student, I'd obviously much rather have a 100% pure angus ground beef in my hamburger. But if I can get the relative same amount of nutrition from a burger that costs half the price, I'll go with the half price burger, even if that means I'm eating some MSM.

As long as it is labeled as such, I have no problem with it. In a perfect world, yes, we wouldn't have the need for MSM and low(er) quality meat products. Everyone would be able to have small family farmed raised animals bought from local farmers and taken to local butchers. But that isn't feasible to feed the nation, let alone the world.

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The butcher is usually very clean, too, so no need for that ammonia washing.

It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that a processing facility is less clean, but everything to do with quantity. If a single meat product or carcass is contaminated with bacteria such as E. Coli, it and every carcass that was processed with it is condemned. Companies can't afford to have that happen. So because they need every carcass to pass inspection, and because people can't be trusted to cook their meat properly, they take steps to insure the quality of that carcass by killing off any bacteria that may be present.

And for the record, we buy our beef from a local farmer and go through a local butcher...but I completely understand why we have the current meat industry that we do.

It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that a processing facility is less clean, but everything to do with quantity.

actually it has a quite a bit to do with cleanliness. I'm going to guess you haven't been in too many beef rendering plants or been anywhere they slaughter and package chickens and then been able to also view the same, or do the same on a local level with grass fed and free range chickens.

We even tested chickens in college, organic free range were cleaner by many factors over they stuff from GoldenPlump. I forget the actual numbers but I think the differences were at least 100, and very probable in the 1000 fold differences in bacterial counts.

^^^ Definitely. USDA always tries shutting down these little local farmers because it isn't "sanitary" for food animals to be out in the open, butchered one-on-one, so on. But their bacterial counts are always waaay lower than commercial meat and poultry butchering plants.

Cows also naturally have E.Coli in their digestive tract. Corn-fed cows have a much higher number than grass-fed cows, simply because corn isn't a natural product, and a cow's digestive tract isn't anymore apt to deal with it than a dog's. After maybe a week on grass, those corn-fed cows shed a good 80-90% of the E.Coli in their systems. It's not so much of a people need to cook their food...but that the numbers for E.Coli in commercial cows is so high, you're simply not going to catch it all and it's going to start becoming resistant like most bacteria and viruses.

Thing is, we go nuts if a dog food company has constant recalls on their food, yes? It's obvious, the cleanliness and quality control is severely lacking. But no one is blinking an eye at all these big meat companies that constantly end up with recalls due to E.Coli. Or any corn companies that are dealing with E.Coli, salmonella, or other bacterial issues in their products like peanut butter. No one cares. Our food industry is pretty darn filthy.